


Crash Into Reality

by gala_apples



Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy
Genre: Alternate Timelines, M/M, Plane Crashes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-07
Updated: 2012-09-07
Packaged: 2017-11-13 17:55:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/506161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gala_apples/pseuds/gala_apples
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five plane crashes in the lives of Joe and Pete. A growing up together AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crash Into Reality

Joe- age four  
In the block area are two carpets. One is big and a circle and blue and it’s got letters on it. There are a whole lot, but Joe’s smart, he knows which one’s his name. It’s orange and it looks like a hockey stick. But Joe likes the other carpet better. It’s got houses and ‘partments and roads and even a lake with a bridge. It’s for playing cars on, or people. It’s smaller so people have to take turns, the teacher tells them when they have to share. Joe only sometimes like sharing.

He’s sharing today with Pete and Cody. But Joe knows pretty soon Pete will have to go to the sink. ’Cause he’s got Play-Doh in his hair. When a teacher sees she’ll make him go. Then he’ll take Pete’s plane 'cause he has the best one. Pete’s has wheels for emergency landings. Cody doesn’t have a plane he has a special robot plane for when things go to the moon, but Joe doesn’t want his people to go to the moon so he doesn’t care.

Joe flies his over the city and decides they’re going to stop at McDonald’s. He just needs people from the shelf and fries from the kitchen on the other side of the daycare. Then Pete crashes his plane into the carpet and the teacher tells him to not break toys but it’s not really broken she just means do the ‘respect the environment’ rule for daycare. Joe thinks his people should crash so he crashes his. And then they have to go play in the water table ‘cause they’re not listening, and that means they’re not doing the ‘respect teachers and kids’ rule. But Pete shows him how the sponges can be planes that even drip water on fires, so it’s still fun.

Joe- age eight  
Joe likes almost everything about school. He gets to learn stuff, about everything, and sometimes they even use computers. He gets to have recess with monkey bars and when he’s taller he’ll be big enough for tether-ball. He gets to be away from his brothers and sisters, and when he asks his mom to put something special in his lunch kit sometimes he gets Hostess cupcakes.

School is great, but his most favourite thing is his teacher. Mrs Pinkerton is really cool and she can make anything a game. Right now they’re doing science. As soon as everyone is ready they get to go to the teacher’s lounge and throw things out the window! No one Joe knows has ever even gotten to look into the crack between door and floor trying to see what’s inside. But Mrs Pinkerton says it’s the only room that has windows that can be open all the way. All the other windows Joe can think of in the school have metal grids on them for safety and to prevent robbers.

Everyone has spent the whole day making airplanes from different kind of paper, different sizes and weights of paper, and any way they can think of folding them. The next step is everyone gets to make predictions -that’s called a hypothesis. And then they get to go to the teacher’s lounge and throw them and see which ones went furthest and try to figure out why. That’s called analysis.

Joe’s goes pretty far, he used the yellow printer paper. When they go outside to check everything Pete’s huge newspaper plane is stuck in a tree. Joe giggles and Pete glares at him for a minute before laughing too. Joe’s happy Pete’s not really mad at him, but he’s also happy he won. It means he gets Pete’s yogurt at lunch.

Joe- age twelve  
Joe’s sitting in English class hoping Mrs Evans doesn’t call on him for his chapter summary of Charlie Wilcox because he totally didn’t do it -he meant to but then there was a Simpsons marathon on TV- when it happens. The intercom comes on and the principal asks all the teachers to please gather in the library. Joe looks at beside him without asking out loud what his desk partner thinks his up. Troy barely even shrugs, obviously totally uninterested, too cool for caring. Joe is interested, because it’s a huge anomaly. Troy’s new this year, but the junior high is a wing inside the elementary school so Joe’s been going here for seven years now and he’s never heard an announcement like that. Evans tells them to start reading the chapter and leaves.

When she comes back she’s shaking, bad enough that Amanda asks her if she’s okay. She doesn’t answer, just tells them what the principal told all the teachers. It’s only been five minutes since she left, but everything is different. The world is suddenly freakin’ scary. Someone crazy put a plane into two buildings in New York, and no one knows if they’re going to other major cities. A few of the girls start crying and that’s okay because they’re girls and Mark Matters does too and that shouldn’t be okay but no one says anything because everything is really freaking weird right now. They don’t go to next period, just stay in homeroom the whole morning.

When they’re finally let out for lunch Joe goes to the cafeteria not because he wants to eat but because he knows Pete will be there. Pete looks like he’s about to collapse, and his words don’t make him sound any better. “I don’t know what to do. I’m kind of really scared.”

“My older brother has some weed, you want to skip? I saw a bunch of people waiting outside for parents and the secretary was crying I don’t think anyone will be surprised if we leave.” Joe’s never taken any from Clinton, and he knows Pete’s never done drugs before. But he also knows that if Pete goes home he’ll be stuck listening to his siblings asking him all the questions they won’t ask his mom or dad. Joe’s house is probably easier, and he knows weed is calming, he’s seen Clinton be mad after work and smoke some and then being happy. Joe just wants Pete to be happy.

Joe- age sixteen  
Pete’s getting really good with his silk screening. Joe’s watched him do it a thousand times now, purple paper on the mesh board and then the nice gloopy paint smeared onto the edge of a squeegee before it’s wiped over the board. Pete’s offered to teach him about a hundred times, the other nine hundred too caught up in the near realisation of a design to think of others. When he’s asked Joe says he doesn’t need to know, so when he’s not asked he’s hardly going to be offended.

Joe doesn’t really care to know the technique. All of two things matter to him when it comes to crafty shit like this. The first is that it’s something that makes Pete happy, which it seems to. Pete gets off kilter a lot, but channeling it through creative means seems to help. The second is that he’s got enough money to pick up the ones he wants when Pete makes one he likes. Which is often. Pete’s either brilliant, or Joe’s been conditioned by twelve years of friendship to think so. It helps that Pete lets him by them at cost, just the price of the actual t-shirt.

Once again, Joe’s going to have to shell out seven bucks. He takes a look at the design when Pete pulls the screen away, it’s red on cream. He’ll probably request different colours, but he wants the design; an 1950’s two winged airplane crashing into the ocean as the goggled person uses their scarf as a parachute. It’s funky, and Pete’s smile at the print makes it even better.

Joe- age 20  
Joe reads over the lyrics and looks at Pete for a second. Pete’s determinedly not looking back at Joe, so he has no choice but to ask “you sure you wanna go there?”

It’s not the biggest coming out in the world. Their drummer and bassist know, the obvious bullshit line of ‘don’t let it fuck up the band’ stated once before the whole thing is ignored as much as Jake’s girlfriend is. The Wentzs know, Pete was smart enough to not name names so Joe can still come over even though they’ve forbidden Pete from even bringing a man he’s with to the family home. Joe’s parents know and couldn’t give a flying crap. But this song is still a step that Joe’s not sure Pete is ready for.

“It’s not like one song is gonna make us queercore.”

“That’s not where I was going man.” Hell it’s not like most of the lyrics Pete screams are intelligible anyway. Only people that actually both buy their CD and take the time to read the stapled together printer paper lyrics will know. And Jake and Katrina aren’t really subtle, and Joe’s pretty sure the entire band has to be bi or gay to be queercore.

“Where were you going then?” Joe would have to be stupid to not hear the challenge in his voice. The bordering on hurt is a lot more subtle.

“We’re not exactly exclusive. You put this out, it makes shit more serious. The groupies that would fuck you are the same groupies that will read the lyrics and think they can’t.” It’s not like Joe isn’t ready for a relationship, but he doesn’t need one if that’s not what Pete needs.

Pete shrugs. “You know how at weddings people have their song and for the rest of their lives they smile and think back when they hear it? I thought this could be our song.”

“You want Plane Crash Eyes to be our wedding song. You want to sing your own wedding song? Do you realise how egocentric that is?”

Pete doesn’t even use the easy joke of saying they could get a cover band. He just says “that’s not a no, Joe.”

“We’re not getting married, we’re friggin twenty. But I’ll let you sing it and I’ll let you make out with me on stage.”

“Dry hump?”

“Dude, Club Silver is not Projekt Rev.” Pete snorts and Joe covers his mouth, opening to try and convince Joe of more on stage before they’ve even talked to Jake and Warren. Like always, Pete tastes like grape Bubbalicious.


End file.
